NEW YORK — Twitter mogul Elon Musk, the sole owner of Twitter, said Tuesday he will step down as CEO when he finds a replacement, and will only lead the software and server management teams in the meantime.
True to form, he said in a tweet that he would step down as head of Twitter “as soon as I find someone crazy enough to take that position,” without giving any other details.
On Sunday he launched a poll in his own account in which he asked users to vote on whether he should continue as CEO: 17 million users voted in twelve hours and 57% asked him to leave office, but it does not appear that those votes represent real people and are not “bots” or fake profiles.
Several media reported today that Musk was actively looking for a possible executive director, and the economic portal CNBC specified that this search did not start on Sunday, but several weeks ago, apparently without much success.
It is not known whether the search is being carried out inside or outside the company, which was severely undercapitalized in human resources after Musk toppled previous management, fired about half of its employees and then voluntarily left hundreds more.
In June, before the purchase of the network was made official, Musk had already leaked that he would lead the company for “a few months”, although that promise seemed difficult to keep given the interest that Twitter had attracted in him since his arrival and his extreme personal involvement in its course.
This action revives the debate about freedom of expression on the platform and the policies of the new owner of the company. To see more from Telemundo, visit https://www.nbc.com/networks/telemundo.
So much so that the investors and senior executives of Tesla – the other large company of Musk and the source of his great fortune – had already been more or less openly asking him for several weeks to appoint an executive director for Twitter, given that it took a lot of time to take care of his other business.
And it wasn’t just a matter of timing: To offset Twitter’s losses, Musk sold two large blocks of Tesla stock between November and December, valued at $3.65 billion and $3.9 billion, respectively.
The losses are mainly due to the flight of advertisers, a symptom of his concern about the company’s ups and downs due to Musk’s constant second thoughts, and are so serious that yesterday the millionaire declared that the company “is heading straight for bankruptcy. ” if no one solves it.
Most advertisers have abandoned Twitter because they believe the network has been overrun by extremist profiles and hate speech, while Musk, a self-proclaimed “free speech” absolutist, has exercised censorship against several critical journalists, deleting their accounts with him, although he later accepted them back after launching another “Twitter poll” upon his return.
